Nothing can be so chaotic as a firefighter in trouble that calls a Mayday.  The fire service spends a lot of time and resources in training firefighters and task level officers in techniques and methods for calling a Mayday and surviving those situations—as it should be!  However, there has been little developed and created in […]

As a young firefighter at my first career job, I had a captain that made us take a can on just about every type of alarm.  Fire alarm–take the can.  Odor of smoke–take the can.  The list goes on and it became a habit for us to grab the can.  During my time there (it’s […]

Bailout is a last option for us when things go bad. We can do all of the right things and still find ourselves in trouble. It doesn’t and won’t happen often when we train and operate in standard manners, but we have to be prepared. This podcast discusses some basic concepts that we at Engine […]

This episode we discuss some items to consider when dealing with service and misc. calls.  It’s important that we don’t take these incidents lightly.  Each call has the potential for being a challenge, not matter how it is dispatched or what you think it might be. For CO calls follow your guidelines for calling out […]

This is a short podcast discussing some basics of calling the Mayday. In this episode we discuss the shift from using LUNAR to the three W’s. Who are you? What happened to you? Where are you? With those three questions, as a firefighter we can provide pertinent information and not have to try to remember […]

    Weekly Company Drill Building Familiarization This drill is a size up and familiarization drill. It can be broken up into several parts and get as much information gathered as possible. The objective of this drill is to identify specific hose length stretches for large complexes or buildings that may test the ability of […]

By: Captain Steve Heidbreder As many of you may have done over the Father’s Day weekend, I spent some time thinking about the day and what it means to me as a father. I reflected on my own Father, my Step-Dad, my Grandfathers, and those that were a father figure in my life. I then looked at myself […]

Stretching an attack line dry is a tactic for a set of very specific situations. A couple that come to mind are exterior stairwells, protected interior stairwells, and for tenable halls/corridors from a protected stairwell. With all of these, somebody must be assigned to mind the hose before it’s charged and it must be laid […]

In this episode of the Engine House Training Podcast, Kansas City, Missouri Fire Captain Charley Cashen shares his story of survival. Charley was caught in a rapidly changing fire while searching for a victim in the basement of a home in January 2015. Captain Cashen, a 30 year fire service veteran shares his experience, and lessons […]

Be sure to check out our HOT class at FDIC 2015: Firefighter Bailout Choosing the Right Bailout System for Your Department February 11, 2015 by Frank Lipski Leave a Comment   Introduction The process of choosing a bailout system for your agency can be difficult to say the least.  In this article, I am going to share with you my […]